National History Day Research Resources
Reference Services Department
Topic: Mexican-American War
Created 10/2013
Print Resources
(The call number for books about the Mexican American War is 973.62. If a
call number has a “j” in front of it, it can be found in the Children’s
Department. Call numbers that are preceded by a “C” are in our Western
History and Genealogy Department and are for reference only. The rest of
the 973.62’s can be found in the regular non-fiction section.)
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The Mexican American War: An Annotated Bibliography, Norman
Tutorow – A compilation of print resources for researchers.
Primary Source Accounts of the Mexican-American War, James M.
Deems, j973.62 Deem – Not only does this book includes information
from lots of primary sources, it also gives a good description of what
primary sources are in the first place.
Mexican-American War, 1846-1848, Ron Field, 973.624F458me – An
excellent overview of the war, its causes, and its consequences.
Culture y Cultura: Consequences of the U.S.-Mexican War, 1846-1848,
Iris H.W. Engstrand, C305.86872 E58cu – An in-depth look at how the
war has impacted citizens on both sides of the border, long after the
fighting stopped.
Prospector and Interlibrary Loan
Prospector: http://prospectorhome.coalliance.org/
Prospector is a unified catalog of academic, public and special libraries in
Colorado and Wyoming. For items not available at the Denver Public
Library, search here first. Items can take 1-2 weeks to arrive.
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WorldCat: http://www.denverlibrary.org/content/didnt-find-it
Use this national and international catalog to search for items not available
at DPL or in Prospector. You must fill out a one-time Request It registration
to place Interlibrary Loan requests. These requests may take 2-3 weeks to
arrive.
Databases/Digital Resources
To access the Denver Public Library databases:
www.denverlibrary.org
Click on the “Research” tab
Click on “Databases A-Z”
Database suggestions:
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Gale Virtual Reference Library – Dozens of entries which include
a few primary sources, government documents, books, and
encyclopedia entries.
Federal Government Publications – Search for government
documents of all kinds.
Sanborn Maps – Includes historical maps of the Western United
States.
Historical New York Times – The NYT was founded in 1850, two
years after the war ended, but has useful information about its
aftermath.
America: History and Life – Contains a wealth of informative
articles that tend to be a little on the scholarly side (but
informative nonetheless).
Keywords for Catalog and Database Searching
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Mexican-American War
Mexican War
U.S.-Mexican War
The Invasion of Mexico
The U.S. Intervention
The United States War Against Mexico
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
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Mexican Cession
James K. Polk
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
Zachary Taylor
Mariano Airsta
Manifest Destiny
Treaties of Velasco
Republic of Texas
Nueces Strip
Siege of Fort Texas
Primary Sources
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Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo – Full Text
Library of Congress Hispanic Reading Room – Lots of links to
relevant documents from the Library of Congress.
Descendants Mexican-American War Veterans – Many links to
primary sources including speeches, battle reports and treaties.
PBS Mexican-American War – Links to illustrations, maps and
photos.
Spanish-Mexican Land Grants – Full text land grants from the
Colorado State Archives.
Mexican-American War Camp Life – Scans and text of letters home
from American soldiers.
Internet Resources
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Descendants of Mexican-American War Veterans – A treasure trove
of reliable information including historical overviews and timelines;
primary source material; statistics; and a bibliography.
A Continent Divided: The US-Mexican War – A collection of USMexican War resources from the University of Texas, Arlington,
which includes lots of information from primary resources and
useful articles for students.
LatinAmericanStudies.org – Despite its low quality appearance, this
site is packed with high quality resources including battle maps,
biographies, a short bibliography and much more. (This site is also
a very good source for web-friendly, public domain art.)
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Military Resources: Mexican-American War, 1846-1848 – From the
National Archives in Washington D.C., this page is heavy on primary
sources and rock solid research materials.
Purdue University Online Writing Lab (Purdue OWL)
MLA Formatting and Style Guide
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/
Annotated Bibliography
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/01/
Google Searching
By adding [site:gov] or [site:edu] to a Google search, you will return only
government or academic webpages.
By adding [-.com] to a search, you will remove .com sites from your
returned results.
Put quotation marks around words "[any word]" to search for an exact
phrase in an exact order.
For more advanced Google searching tips, visit:
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/136861
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